Non-white colleagues disliked her peninsular (i.e. European) Spanish accent.
A white Spanish professor filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday claiming she was fired from the University of Pittsburgh because she spoke the language with a European accent and was looked down upon by Hispanic faculty members, including a Bolivian department chair who called Spain a land of “oppressors.”
Sarah Williams, who is identified only as a Pittsburgh-area resident who is over 40 years old, contends she was an award-winning teacher for most of her 14 years who only began to have problems at the university after Elizabeth Monasterios, a Bolivian, became chair of the Spanish language department in 2008.
“The leadership of the department before and during the time when her renewal came up was in the hands of Latin American Hispanic people and she was treated unfairly, notwithstanding being an outstanding teacher recognized for her long and excellent service,” Williams’ attorney, James Lieber, told The Associated Press. “First she began to lose opportunities and then she began to lose her job.”
The department faculty voted in October 2010 not to extend Williams’ contract, and after she lost an appeal to the provost, her contract was terminated at the end of June, according to the lawsuit.
Monasterios told the AP by email that she had no comment on the lawsuit. Pitt spokesman John Fedele said the university does not comment on pending litigation.
The 21-page lawsuit contends Monasterios and “other faculty members in the Department who were of Latin American origin made Ms. Williams feel uncomfortable for speaking Spanish with a peninsular (i.e. European) accent, rather than with a Latin American accent.”
Those same faculty members “used disparaging terms to describe non-Latin American individuals, and Prof. Monasterios has described Spain as being the land of ‘the oppressors,'” the lawsuit said.
Among other things, the lawsuit said Williams participated on departmental search committees — which helped hire new faculty — for five consecutive years until Monasterios became chair. Williams also claimed she was discouraged from taking on additional responsibilities in the department, including one instance when she said she was passed over for a position that went to a Hispanic professor.
Williams won the university Provost’s Innovation In Teaching Award in 2007, but her lawsuit says her performance reviews nonetheless suffered after Monasterios became chair. According to the lawsuit, Monasterios had “reservations” about Williams’ “teaching effectiveness” and removed her from teaching upper level Spanish courses which were assigned to “less qualified instructors.”
Williams also lost her position leading a summer study abroad program and was later accused of “un-collegial behavior” when she tried to salvage the program, according to the lawsuit.
Williams is seeking reinstatement, back pay and other unspecified damages in the lawsuit which targets Pitt and the state’s system of higher education, because the university is considered “state-related” because it receives some state funding.